Human Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[John Grimshaw]

It's a good question, but just from my own experience, money pretty much drives everything. If you start at the top....

I was at a meeting just last week with people from Alberta—from Suncor, Shell, and another one; I don't think it was CNRL, but it was another huge oil sands developer. They were asking the same kinds of questions: how do we get apprentices through? How do we get apprentices to become journeymen?

There's no point in bringing apprentices in if you're not going to have journeymen. That is not going to solve your problem down the road. That might solve your problem for the day or for a week or two, but it's not going to solve your problem, so they are now ensuring that when a contractor gets work, he has to hire so many apprentices.

By the way, the rate in Alberta is one journeyman for two apprentices. On all of those jobs at the tar sands, they said their saturation rate is about 30% of apprentices, so even though they can go two apprentices to one journeyman, their effective rate is approximately three journeymen to one apprentice. Now, I'm talking about the major heavy industrial areas and whatnot, the oil sands and the oil refineries and the upgraders and whatnot. They don't use us only; they use non-union, they used alternative unions, they use whoever to do their work. They are now insisting to all of their employers that they have proper programs to bring apprentices through—and do you know what? As soon as you tell a contractor that they have to do this or they don't get the job, it will happen.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

They'll take note.

[John Grimshaw]

It will happen.

As to how the federal government influences that, I really don't have an answer for you. We do it because we recognize the necessity of it. One of our biggest selling points is that we do have qualified people who are ready to go to work, who are safety-trained, who know the latest technologies. That's what we demand of our people, and that's why we're able to get work.

[Steve Martin]

On your point about how we get apprentices to be able to move around, the problem we have now is that every province has a different training standard. The only thing that could be done at the federal level is to have the federal government mandate that all of the provincial training has to be done at a certain level, so basically enact the Red Seal program as a federal mandate. Everybody would have to train to the Red Seal level. Then you would have portability of apprentices as well as journeymen, coast to coast.

As you know, construction is cyclical, so it will be busy in Alberta for the next couple of years, and then Saskatchewan will pick up, and then B.C. will go, and then the east coast will go. If you have a province that is loaded up with a ton of apprentices and journeymen who can't go anywhere, how does that solve your problem? We're back again to a shortage at one end of the country and an overabundance at the other end of the country, and nothing to be able to solve it in between.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you. We appreciate that.

I understand Mr. Carmichael has a very short question, and we have a very short period of time, so if he could put his question and if anybody has any closing comments, we'll take those.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you Chair, for my 10 minutes—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

First of all, I'm very impressed with the testimony today. I think some of the work you're doing is extremely important. I happen to represent an area in which youth at risk are a significant problem. The apprenticeship program, to me, is one that.... Certainly in my previous career in the automotive industry, we spent a lot of time and money on apprenticeship and development, because those create sustainability for business.

I wonder if you could talk about the Helmets to Hardhats program. You mentioned you had a similar program. Is it an apprenticeship program that you're applying to bring veterans into learning and training in the trade as well?

[James St. John]

Definitely.

They are evaluated, and the building trades try to funnel them to whichever one of our affiliates makes the best sense for using some of the previous skill set that they learned in the military and to have them work in that particular trade.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that response. That's it.

Mr. Reed, did you want to make a comment? If you do, we'll close with a comment from you. Go ahead.

[Peter Reed, Business Representative, Field Representative, Hammer Heads, Central Ontario Building Trades]

My part of the Hammer Heads program deals a lot with following up with the youth and seeing them in the field. Something that is important to understand is that youth will stumble, and youth will have issues as they go through an apprenticeship or start into a career, as our Hammer Heads do.

Employers, a lot of times, don't have time to understand that and don't care. They could accept the fact that a youth was late or had an issue one day, but the next time it happens, they just cut the youth loose and hire somebody else. They don't have time to stick around, so in our program the follow-ups that James talked about are very important. It's important to go out there and see in real time what happens. If a youth is late once, I can address that with the youth, and it needs to be addressed with the youth to make sure you solve the problem and you don't let it build until the employer just eventually cuts the youth loose.

The first-year mandated follow-ups and interaction with the youth are very important in keeping them on track. We can tell them and teach them to get up early and not to be late and to have a good plan, but you need to ensure that they continue that through the first year so that it becomes a real habit to them. Twelve weeks is great, but you need that year to make sure the habit is formed so that they become good workers and make it in the field.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that intervention. We certainly appreciated your testimony.

The meeting is adjourned.